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Empowerment for All People of Color
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Archive of "Relationship" Category
Finding Work Life Balance
I work a lot. I probably work way too much. When I took my current position (more than a year ago at this point) I put in crazy hours. Those hours weren’t a phase but a constant in my life – early mornings, late nights, weekends, taking work home, you know the drill. In addition to working I was heavily involved with various other initiatives – BGCS, SwirlPhilly, etc.. Over the last year many of those things were pushed off of my plate. Ok full stop – I pushed them off of my plate. I have to take some ownership of this. I don’t think it was intentionally. I was already invested in the mission of the agency I worked before I ever accepted the offer to join their staff. It definitely intensified when I came on board. I don’t regret it for a second.Nevertheless, I think I lost a part of my identity independent of where I worked. Everything sort of blended together and I lost sight of where one ended and the other began. Perhaps I became too invested. Is that even possible? This is not to say that being as invested and committed to our mission is a bad thing, but rather that a lot of other things I was/am passionate about went to the wayside. I really miss them and want to get connected again.
I have been feeling very lost lately and I think it has to do with a lot of lack of balance in my life. I am not engaging in enough activities that bring me joy personally. I know we often talk about professional and personal realms blending in the non profit world, that it seems to be a natural occurance, but I am not sure if that is at all healthy. I think there needs to be boundary. Otherwise, burnout is a surity!
I miss dancing. I keep wanting to get back into a dancing groove. I took a class on Saturday. The Medic and I went out Saturday night to Brasil’s. While I am not going to make class tonight, I am going to make it a point to go Saturday mornings. The dance schedule has completely shifted at Estilo, so I am going to have to go back to check which classes are being offered when.
I miss blogging with a mission. I am blogging with an outdated mission. Or perhaps I have drifted from the mission and just need to re-focus. The lifeblogging component has always been there, but it has definitely moved to the forefront over the last few months. Perhaps I am overthinking this, but I feel like the TDP brand is no longer clearly visible. Perhaps it really is time for a complete shift. I don’t know. I need to sit with this for a bit.
I miss my Swirl family. I need to recharge our local chapter. I have been so busy with everything else that SwirlPhilly sort of driftet off of that proverbial plate of mine. I am going to reach out to all of the local members this weekend and set up socials for March, April and May, as well as a planning meeting. I hope to recruit one or two more individuals who are interested in serving as part of the leadership team.
While work remains demanding and I am committed as ever to being a part of the agency’s long-term success, I also need to take more time to ensure my personal and professional success beyond the agency. I realize there are only 24 hours in the day – much to my shagrin – and if I ease up on work hours only to fill my plate with other things, I am going to end up with the same result…burnout.
So, balance! There are many things I want to return to doing,but for now, dancing, blogging and SwirlPhilly are on my agenda.
Do you find that your work and personal blend in together? How have you set boundaries in your life to attain and/or maintain balance?
New (somewhat scary) Territory
I am going to keep this somewhat short and sweet, because if I muse about this for too long its just going to snowball into more than it is or should be. We all know that I overthink things, so this is an exercise in just getting my thoughts out without beating a dead horse (too much). I rarely every write about this. I sure as hell never post these thoughts here. However, since I am giving into this new lifeblogging identity,
I had a realization this weekend. I’ve always been in relationships where I have settled – settled for less than I deserve, for people who were wrong for me for many reasons, and most profoundly, settled for people who settled for me and never failed to remind me of it. While I have moved beyond much of that baggage, sometimes insecurities still comes up. I’ve learned to keep said baggage in check, but nevertheless…..yeah!
Despite some violent stomach issues this weekend I got quite a bit of work done on cleaning up the back end of TDP, including cleaning out my draft folder and lots of thinking about future blog posts. I also found some quiet time for reflection. Actually, a light bulb went off. I realized that for the first time in my life I am in a relationship where neither of us are settling, where I don’t feel like second best, like I am the “right now” girl. It took my breath away. Things are so different with the Medic. Although I sometimes let my insecurities get the best of me, feeling and knowing that I am right where I am supposed to be puts those feelings in check. I feel extremely loved and valued and cherished. I really can’t even begin to find words to describe how I feel.
Anyway…that is all! I am off to bed. Until next time!
Lessons Learned…or something like that!
One of my favorite movies is The Holiday! It has all of the ingredients that makes for a good Hollywood love story, especially a holiday love story. You have the Playboy (Jude Law), the Goofball (Jack Black), the Heartbroken Girl Next Door (Kate Winslet), and the Beautiful Success Producer (Cameron Diaz). Two women, jilted by love in their own unique way, trade homes for the Holidays, only to find love half way around the world.
Of course there was the happy ending, but not until after the conflict. What is the conflict, you ask? Well, that’s complicated. You have a dash of unrequited love and testosterone inspired head games, but in the end the biggest hurdle is the distance, at least for the Playboy and the Producer. The Playboy lives outside of London with his two girls (his wife died a few years ago) and the Producer lives in LA. Neither of them travel to each other’s city. They are at an empass. Although the movie has an extremely happy, mushy ending, you never learn how they deal with their distance.When I first saw that movie I said to myself “I will never ever date someone long distance.” It had always been my line in the sand relationship wise. The only reason I even considered dating Dawn was because had applied to Rice before we got together. I would have been in Houston anyway. However, when I decided on Villanova, I ended things with her. I wasn’t negotiating. Little did I know that I would meet someone who captured my heart and turn my world upside down to such an extent that I would rethink my position on long distance. I actually never gave the distance a thought. I knew from the first conversation that the distance was temporary. I didn’t know who would move or when or how, but I knew that we would work through it.
Nevertheless, I have had to learn to process a whole host of emotions unique to long distance relationships, or maybe they are just unique to me. I have never missed anyone before, at least not someone I have dated. I am learning how to balance missing the Medic while not coming off to needy. I am not sure how much I succeed at this, but it is a work in progress. I have learned to listen more and talk less. Yes, this is a challenge for me in general, but long distance requires a while different set of communication skills that I didn’t really posses in the past.
Patience. I am not a patient person. I gave up working on that years ago. Instant gratification is highly under rated (kinda like nap time). The last 20 days have been challenging. I know people have been doing long distance for years, see each other once every month or two. I am pretty aware of what I can and can’t do and, that would be right at the top of my list. Ok, so back to my point – 20 days is way too long to not see the Medic. So, we are working on an every other weekend kind of deal. The Medic’s schedule is far more flexible than mine, but I am working things out. I may be able to work remotely on more occasions. I am still trying to figure that one out. I know that I am not a patient person but I am extremely intentional about what this transition means for the Medic. Cryptic, right?!
Vulnerability. I sometimes find myself completely incapable of communicating how I feel. What’s at the heart of this? Feeling vulnerable – I’m not good at it. Well, that isn’t completely true. I am better at certain aspects than others. While I can allow myself to be physically vulnerable with the Medic, being emotionally vulnerable is a whole other issue. I was mortified when I burst into tears in front of her during a visit to the Tundra. Perhaps that is the German part of me. All the messy stuff is to be kept behind closed doors – the crying, the self-doubt, the chaos. I am not saying that I am stone cold or that I don’t allow for the bringing down of walls. I share many of my layers with the Medic, but it has been a process. I’ve let down a lot of walls. I am not sure if it would have been so natural to do so if we had been living in the same city from the beginning. I think that I would have probably asked for more space. Not that I am totally sold on won over to the idea of long distance, but there are some benefits. Like the extent to which you get to know someone, beyond the surface. You have to cut through all of that, all the niceties and reach to the core of a person. Otherwise I think you would lose interest fast if things remain shallow.
I feel like I am completely off from where I set out to take this post. I am not sure if I have an actual point. I started it when I was having a moment. I hit my threshold of how long I could be separated from the Medic. I didn’t want to seem too needy, so I began to write. I hate being or seeming needy. Or is it admitting that I need her? I’ve never really felt like I needed someone in my life. Is there really a difference? All I can say is that I am working on it.
Square Peg, Round Hole
I have been that girl before! Everyone knows her or has been her before. You know, the one who gets into a relationship and disappears into a vacuum, into the new relationship black hole. I knew it was unhealthy each and every time. I knew that things would end badly (even though things often ended for very different reasons but the disappearing act contributed to the dissolution), but I made the choice anyway. I probably owe some amends, as none of my friends deserved to be treated like that – good enough to hang out with when I was single but expendable when I was coupled. That’s definitely not the message I wanted to send, yet its what I did over and over again.
I always felt – subconsciously – that I was compensating for something that was lacking in the relationship. There wasn’t enough or right form of communication, or honesty, or depth of understanding, or laughter…the list goes on and on. So, if there wasn’t enough of all those things, then we were going to spend every waking, non working moment together. Perhaps my past partners also sensed something was missing as their choice was often quantity over quality time as well. The controlling and abusive relationship not withstanding – most of my relationships were of this sort. While I was always non-committal at first, each one built into entities with little substance despite the amount of ‘together time’. Nevertheless, I often made the choice to invest time in a relationship that was never going to work. I knew it was never going to work, yet giving up just didn’t seem like a viable option. It’s like forcing a square peg into a round hole…..just not going to happen! Someone’s going to break something!
I’ve come to realize that it isn’t a matter of giving up or not. Rather, it has everything to do with being in a relationship that is mutually fulfilling, balanced and thereby healthy. Relationships, while requiring investment from both parties, really shouldn’t always be hard or require painstaking effort to make it feel right. In hind sight, I’d argue that if it doesn’t feel right, then it probably isn’t. Yeah, 20/20 is a beautiful thing, isn’t it? Thankfully I learned this long before the Medic came into the picture.
Speaking of the Medic – one of the things I cherish about our time together is our sense of balance. We almost spend as much time with friends and doing every-day things as we steal private time to just enjoy each other. Nothing is forced or…ok, sometimes getting out of bed requires an extensive amount of motivation, but nothing about us is forced. It just works – we fit. The logistical dysfunction – distance – has helped (or forced us, depending on how you see it) us focus on quality over quantity.
I must admit though that no matter how much I embrace the “absence makes the heart grow fonder” thing, I know that I am not wired for long distance relationships. Yet, trusting her (and myself), the dimensions of communication we have developed and the temporariness of it all keep me from wigging. Oh, and have I mentioned that I am ridiculously in love with her? Yeah…
Friends with Boundaries
Addiction has touched my family in more ways than I can count. [Significantly redacted] I was recently asked to remove this post. I felt extremely hurt and silenced by this request. After much contemplation I have decided to remove what I think was at issue and retain the rest of this post without edit. I doubt this will resolve the issue from the other party’s perspective, but welcome a dialogue. Nevertheless, I will say this….addiction issues in my family lead me to seek out Al-Anon. Otherwise, why would someone randomly seek out Al Anon, right? Addiction, whether one’s own or that of someone we love, impacts everyone differently. It impacts an entire family, no matter how far away someone lives….half way across the country or around the world. For good or bad, I have always processed out loud – relationship issues (post fact), identity issues, finding my birth father…the list goes on. I never do so in a way that is meant to hurt anyone involved and I take special care in only telling my story.
Anyway…back to regular scheduled programming!
I also have several friends who struggle with their addictions on a daily basis – sometimes more than others.
Ever so often one of them pops into my life in an extremely dysfunctional manner. It ends up being more a cry for attention than actually asking for help. A really thin line there, I know. The conversation usually goes something like this:
Her: “I am sinking”
Me: “Have you been to a meeting?”
Her: “No”
Me: “Have you talked to your sponsor?”
Her: “No, she wouldn’t understand.”
Me: “Do you want to go to a meeting together?”
Her: “No, I just want to talk to you.”…at which point I take a step back.
When my sister was going through her issues I had already been living on my own for close to 5 years. I don’t think I have ever been so worried or panicked before. My first thought…how do I fix this? I not only wanted to fix my sister but wanted to fix things for my parents. It was through their filter that I was learning about the situation. Hearing the pain in their voice triggered my need to fix fix fix. At the suggestion of a friend I decided to see what Al-Anon was all about. It was probably the best think that I have ever done for myself. I even attended a few AA meetings for perspective. I haven’t been in a while, but it’s always my first recourse when I am in need of a bit of therapy. I doubt that I would have made it through that phase of mine in tact without some of the friendships I established through AA and Al-Anon. Actually, I am sure that I wouldn’t have.
I’ve stopped trying to fix everything and came to realize that I don’t need fixing either. That was probably the hardest lesson to learn. It used to almost be a knee jerk reaction – something is wrong, I fix it. It explains several of my past relationships. Yet, instead of fixing someone I just became a bit more broken, battered and bruised each time. I learned to discern the difference between my baggage and the baggage of others, as well as how to communicate that difference. I learned that I can only take responsibility for my own baggage and how that impacts my actions and the words I speak. I didn’t learn how to communicate boundaries until much later. I have Shay to thank for that one. It would have saved me a lot of heartache if I had.
Anyway…so fast forward to the present:
….the plan is to meet tomorrow for breakfast/coffee to talk with the condition that we *sigh* are going to a meeting tomorrow…perhaps The Mustard Seed during lunch or William Way after work. I haven’t been down that road in a long long time, so should be interesting.
I expect a lot of “where have you been?” questions. I only touch base regularly with a select few. This probably sounds silly given how much I share on TDP and Facebook, but I want some sense of privacy, that what I share with others is intentional and I have some sense of control of who I share things with. Yes, I know….stop laughing! Doesn’t matter though, because I committed to going and go I shall!
Breaking through..
TDP has been quiet for a while, but I am definitely back. I’ve been battling some writer’s block. Work has been incredibly busy. Salsa is also taking up a good portion of my time, especially now that I am committed to the Spring 2010 Showcase.
So, here is a little run down of where Kathrin has been and why TDP took a bit of a mini-vaca:
Work
I just celebrated my first year at NSC. We have accomplished a lot in that first year. Nevertheless, many things have still been left undone and year two will be packed with new fundraising, outreach and advocacy initiatives. Some exciting things are in the works and I will be sure to share them with you as soon as they are cleared for release.
Simple Living
I moved out of my old apartment in NE Philadelphia and now call Center City Philadelphia home. I sold a lot of my furniture in the process and sorted through dozens of boxes of belongings. The purge was liberating – truly! It’s amazing how much free time I have now – no more 2+hours of daily commute time. My commute these days is 15 minutes door to door.
Healthy Living
I finally have my act together health living wise. Since starting salsa I have shed almost 50lbs (since starting weight watchers about 40lbs). I have tons more energy and just feel better all the way around. Everyone says they can see it in my face. I shall take their word for it, because I can’t tell.
Salsa
I have been taking salsa classes at Estilo Dance Studio for several months now and am completely hooked. I am finally at that point where I can let go enough to feel the music versus just focusing on the steps. I am officially committed to performance class. We are really getting into the choreography, and I am shocked that we are only 23 seconds into a 3 minute routine. I am up for the challenge though. This is going to be kick ass!
Family
My dad comes home in 5 days. He has been stationed abroad for 2 years. Time did not go by as fast as I wanted it to, but the important thing is that he is home. I will be spending 4 days with my family in Florida. It’s good to have the entire family together again for Christmas. Last year felt all wrong! I will be sure to post lots of photos and even some video clips. My camera and Flip will be coming with me…..along with my laptop of course. I don’t expect to be on too much, but will update periodically.
My sister joined the Army a few weeks ago. It’s a great move for her. She is at her unit today getting fitted for her uniform. She leaves for basic training in March, followed immediately by specialized training – paramedic - and won’t be home until sometime in September. My mom gets the sense that she will petition to go active once everything is said and done. This raises the likelihood of her deployment, but we will cross that bridge when we get there.
SwirlPhilly
SwirlPhilly has been a bit silent with work picking up and my recent move. But, I am happy to announce that we are back on track. Our Holiday Happy Hour is Monday, December 21 at Rum Bar. Please join us! Several new people are attending, so it should be a fun crowd! We will also be talking about upcoming events and activities….and fundraising (I have been exploring a few possibilities).
Someone New
There is definitely something brewing. It’s sweet and gentle, yet rough around the edges. I will definitely write more about this once some boundaries are set and I figure a few things out. I will probably post more regularly about this under the privacy filter. Hit me up off-line for the password. It is unexpected to say the least, but the timing could not be more perfect. For now, let’s just say that I am really content!
….more to come! Happy Hump Day!
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